It is a form of harassment that seems to be gaining momentum on social networks. In recent weeks, many Internet users – often expert or researcher accounts – have complained of being bothered, after posting a publication, by other users who, in a completely courteous manner, bombard them with questions in order to supposedly to better understand the subject discussed. This technique, the sealioning (“acting like a sea lion”), which consists of initiating a discussion or debate, quite politely, through sometimes insistent requests for arguments or explanations, turns out to be a disguised but formidable way of troll a conversation.
The term sealioning first appeared in 2014 after the publication of a comic strip by David Malki, in which a sea lion or sea lion (“ sea lion » in English) interferes in a conversation to insistently and absurdly ask two other characters to justify their lack of interest in sea lions. The community of gamers This expression was then used at the time in the context of Gamergate, a vast case of cyberharassment which notably targeted game creator Zoë Quinn.
“The goal is to make you appear aggressive”
Almost ten years after its appearance, this practice, which aims to annoy the person you are talking to, is becoming more widespread on social networks. “These are people who arrive on your feed, and who say to you ‘I don’t understand, explain this thing to me, or that”. And which forces you to unfold an entire educational argument, with the feeling that you are working for the good of your ideas. Only to realize in the end that the person in front of you is absolutely not receptive, already knows their counter-argument inside out, and that they are in fact just there to exhaust you, and have the last word », explains Fabrice Epelboin, specialist in social networks, and teacher at Sciences Po Paris, himself very regularly a victim of sealioning.
Teachers, researchers, and fact-checking specialists are often targeted. “When you teach, the natural reflex when you are asked a question is to try to answer it. But it quickly becomes annoying for people who deal with this type of individual, and it can be demoralizing,” adds the social media specialist. “The objective is ultimately to provoke an angry reaction, thus making the person interviewed appear as someone who is aggressive, not open to debate, or even who is opposed to freedom of expression. Often I end up blocking these people to have peace,” also explains an Internet user who maintains an account specializing in environmental issues.
A new strategy “in information warfare”
Above the trollingTHE sealioning can quickly turn into harassment. “This is intended to wear down the patience, attention and educational efforts of the targeted person, but also to portray this person as irrational. Although the questions may seem innocent, they have malicious intent and have harmful consequences,” says Amy Johnson, a researcher at the Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, a research center at Harvard University specializing in the study of cyberspace. .
Many people today equate this practice to a form of cyberharassment. “We have seen this method widely used in some recent debates. Under the guise of debunking, the search for truth and the quest for good, we can witness pack effects, where several dozen people do sealioningignoring the consequences: it is participating in a form of harassment, to stifle the other”, specifies the Debunkerdehoax collectivespecialized in the analysis of conspiracy and the extreme right.
But for Fabrice Epelboin, the sealioning is above all one more tool “in informational warfare”. “The aim of the game is not to start a debate and establish the truth, but it is to win, to have the last word. In any war strategy, exhausting the adversary proves to be an effective tactic. It is just as important as spreading fake news these days,” adds the social media specialist, who however puts the impact of this new practice into perspective. “It’s often small accounts with few subscribers that engage in this. So much so that the algorithms will very rarely highlight their publication.”